All right, Neatoramanauts! Let's settle this question once and for all: should you rip a bandage off slow or fast?
Did you say slow? Well, according to science, you're wrong:
The perennial debate in every playground has finally been solved - ripping a Band-Aid off quickly causes less pain than pulling it away from the skin in a slow two-second tug.
For the study, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, each student had two plasters applied to their upper arm, hand and ankle. The plasters were then removed using both fast and slow methods, with a randomisation process used to decide which was used first on each student. Subjects were asked to rate the pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the "worst pain imaginable".Fast removal achieved an average pain score of 0.92, while slow removal was significantly more painful at 1.58
Link - via Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Image: Bacon Bandage from the NeatoShop | Lots more fun bandages there!
Specially for blisters or such, the bandage and wound tend to stick together when the flesh dries. A fast rip off is way too painful...
"The speed at which the nurses remove the
bandages is almost always too fast for me. They hold on to the edge of a bandage and
quickly strip it off. This method causes me a short, but intense pain as the bandage is
removed, followed by a longer and more muffled pain. "
My apologies